Transcript of 'Verdict with Dan Abrams' for March 20, 2008

Guests include Eric Holder, Joe DiGenova, Lawrence Eagleburger

Transcript:

DAN ABRAMS, HOST: Continuing with our breaking news coverage tonight: NBC News confirming that there has been a security breach at the State Department. Senator Barack Obama’s passport records have been improperly accessed by State Department employees.

A State Department official is telling NBC News tonight that Obama’s records were accessed by three people on three different occasions earlier this year. January 9th, February 21st, and March the 14th. Two contract employees have been terminated. A third individual disciplined.

A State Department official is explaining to NBC News how this would have been discovered, quote, “A monitoring system was tripped when an employee accessed the records of a high profile individual, when the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the records access, if the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified.”

But this certainly leads to more questions than answers. Who knew? When did they find out? How high did it go? And why was Senator Obama just informed about this tonight?

Now, the “Washington Times” is reporting today, just in the last hour, that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was notified of the security breach yesterday and responded by saying security measures use to monitor records of high-profile Americans worked properly in detecting the breaches.

Of course, the question remains: Why did the Obama team, why did Senator Obama just find out about this now?

We’re going to be speaking to a member of Senator Obama’s team in a moment but first, David Shuster is with us. All right, David. Again, this is breaking throughout this night, what do we know about how Senator Obama found out about this?

DAVID SHUSTER, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Dan, we’re told that Senator Obama’s staff, his Senate staff simply got a phone call from a lower level State Department official and there was sort of a cursory notice. And so, that raises of course, the big issue, Secretary of State Rice knew about this yesterday, why isn’t that a higher level State Department official actually contacted Senator Obama himself? That’s one issue of course, the notification.

But, Dan, the other big issue on all this tonight, which of course, the Obama campaign is continuing to ask, is never mind how they were notified, they like a lot of reporters tonight, want to know, OK, how is the decision made at the State Department? How is the determination made that this was not worthy of an investigation by the FBI over at that Justice Department?

Because the standard procedure is, once this happens, an inspector general of the State Department is notified and the inspector general has to do interviews with these contractors and find out was this innocent? Were they just fishing around? And then secondly, what did they do with the information because if they disseminated the information, that automatically makes it a violation of the Privacy Act punishable under criminal laws. So -

ABRAMS: That becomes the crucial point legally if the dissemination of the information. Because up to this point, it may just be viewed as procedural, they may say, look, we fired the person, the people, that’s it. But if they disseminated the information, then, you’re talking about potential criminal penalties.

Eric Holder joins us now on the phone as well. He is one of the co-chairs of the Obama campaign. Thanks very much for taking time, we appreciate it. Can you tell us a little bit more about how Senator Obama found out about this?

ERIC HOLDER, CO-CHAIR OF THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN (on the phone): I honestly can’t. All I know is basically kind of what you are reporting that we got a call this evening to inform us about this pattern of conduct that I think is very disturbing.

ABRAMS: Do you know when the senator found out about it? When the senator learned of it?

HOLDER: No, I don’t. And I have to tell you that from our perspective, the notification of the senator and who got notified and when is disturbing. But it’s even more disturbing to look at what actually underlying facts. That’s what I think we need to be focusing on.

ABRAMS: Well, look, you’ve worked at a variety of levels of the federal legal system in the United States, in terms of the law here, what do you think should happen?

HOLDER: Well, I’d want to know exactly what did the State Departments investigation and I hope they’d do an investigation, what did that investigation revealed? I’d want to know exactly why you have three separate incidents, separated by a month or so. Why didn’t that trip some heighten sensitivity and how could, you have for it, then have another one, then have yet a third one and as I understand it, not having been referred to the Justice Department for further investigation.

You know, if it happened once and you might be able to say that it was somebody just kind of snooping around. When you get to a second time, I’m less certain that’s all that we have. Then, when we get to a third time, there I really begin to wonder what’s going on here.

ABRAMS: A senior State Department official telling NBC News tonight, that there was, quote, “no political motivation.” He says that here were low level contract employees doing administrative work and they accessed the Obama records out of curiosity. That official also didn’t believe any of the information was sent anywhere. But I would assume that those assurances are not the end of the issue as far as you are concern.

HOLDER: No, I wouldn’t think so at all. I mean, again, I want to know exactly what did—how was that determination made? How could there be such administrative bungling that would allow these kinds of incidents to happen on repeated basis?

It was serious enough that two people were fired and another one disciplined whatever that means. I want to know exactly, you know, you have potential criminal violation here if this information was disseminated in something that was wholly inappropriate if it just happened.

And I think we have to understand that this is a very serious thing. When it happened in the early 90s which regard to President Clinton, well, then ex-Governor Clinton’s passport, an independent counsel was actually appointed to look into that, Joe DiGenova, a great lawyer here in Washington, D.C., you know, an independent investigation occurred.

ABRAMS: Yes, there they wanted to - what the individuals are apparently been looking to see if Bill Clinton, back in the 60s had made some sort of effort to dodge the draft.

HOLDER: Right. As I remember, wherever he go on to Moscow or something along those lines. You know, whatever the nature of the inappropriate search, the fact that people are accessing these materials in an inappropriate way is something that has to be taken seriously and has to be examined in a very serious ways.

ABRAMS: Let me—the “Washington Times” reporting that Secretary of State Rice was notified of the security breach yesterday. Does that concern you?

HOLDER: Yes. Given who’s files were examined, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, given the fact that we have three separate incidents, given the fact that two people were fired at least a month or so ago, the fact that the Secretary of State has only been informed in the last day, suggests to me that somebody at the State Department is not doing their job right.

ABRAMS: All right. Mr. Holder, I want to tell you that the State Department’s spokesman Sean McCormack is holding a press briefing as we speak, a conference call. And here’s what he has said at the beginning on this call. He has said this was imprudent curiosity on the part of the three individuals, quote: “We are taking immediate steps to be able to ensure ourselves that it is in fact nothing more than imprudent curiosity.”

It sounds like what they’re saying is they’re going to do their own investigation.

HOLDER: Well, I think that’s the appropriate thing. The inspector general should be the one conducting in the first instance, the investigation. What I’d always looking towards if there is some basis to believe that a criminal violation has occurred. Then you immediately refer it to the Justice Department and you get the FBI involved.

ABRAMS: Explain to us the role of the inspector general.

HOLDER: Well, the inspector general is somebody who is a politically appointee but who operates really outside the normal chain, outside the political chain and has a responsibility for investigating administrative violations that have occurred (ph), if they’re violations of State Department regulations, as soon as an IG, an inspector general makes the determination if there’s a possibility that a criminal violation that then has to be referred to the Justice Department.

ABRAMS: A passport application includes details such as date, place of birth, email address, mailing address, Social Security number, former name, travel plans, et cetera, should there be concern that, again, they’d described them as low level contract employees doing administrative work. Should there be concern that low level contract employees doing administrative can access the records of a presidential candidate?

HOLDER: I think that’s a very legitimate question. When you have these kinds of records being examined by people who they’d described as low level and, you know, presumably not political, I think, you have to worried about systems they have in place and what safeguards they have in place to make sure that these kinds of records are not used in an inappropriate way.

And again, I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but the fact that you have three separate, inappropriate lookings at these materials is very disturbing to me. And I say, again, to suggest in some way in very unbelievable coincidence or perhaps a pattern of some sort.

ABRAMS: Yes, you mentioned a moment ago, Joe DiGenova. And he joins us now, on the phone, the former U.S. attorney and independent council who investigated the incident that Mr. Holder was referring to with regard to Bill Clinton.

Thanks for taking the time, we appreciate it.

JOE DIGENOVA, FMR. U.S. ATTORNEY (on the phone): My pleasure.

ABRAMS: So, you know the facts that we know at this point. That it appears that three individuals from the State Department, contract employees improperly accessed the passport application data. The passport records of Barack Obama. What happens now, legally?

DIGENOVA: Well, as Eric said earlier and hello to my very good friend, Eric Holder, the bottom line is there should be an investigation conducted by the inspector general. In fact, there may have been one already. If this was discovered in January, as I understand it, I cannot imagine that there has not already been an investigation by the inspector general, if there hasn’t been, I would want to know why not.

ABRAMS: They’d just told us actually, Joe, that they’d just said on their conference call, the inspector general will do that.

DIGENOVA: But I want to know why he hasn’t done it already? If these people—I understand the breach occurred in January and was discovered in January, is that not correct?

HOLDER: Yes, I mean, that’s my understanding.

ABRAMS: Yes.

DIGENOVA: Well, I’d like to know what happened in the last several months. By the way, even just looking at the files is a violation of the Privacy Act. They don’t have to be disseminated. If someone looks at a file without the authority and purpose need to know to do, that is an invasion of privacy at that point.

You have to have a legitimate purpose for accessing these files. If they did it out of prurient (ph) interest, that, of itself is potentially a criminal violation. If there was dissemination, that would make it worse. Now, of course, the Privacy Act is only a misdemeanor but certainly, a firing offense. If these people have been fired by the way, they can’t be interviewed by the I.G. anymore.

ABRAMS: Explain that to us because -

DIGENOVA: They’re not government employees anymore. The I.G. doesn’t have authority over them.

ABRAMS: Because two of the State Department employees have apparently been fired, a third disciplined.

DIGENOVA: Well, if they have been fired, the I.G. can ask if they want to talk to him all he wants to but he doesn’t have the legal authority to them. Presumably, these people were interviewed before they were fired. I cannot imagine that they would not had been interviewed and given statements. If they weren’t, that would be monumental incompetence.

ABRAMS: I’m now getting some more information from Sean McCormack, the spokesperson for the State Department, trying to provide more information about exactly what happened and how it happened in this really somewhat stunning development from the State Department with regard to individuals there, improperly accessing the passport records of Senator Barack Obama.

McCormack saying, it was three separate employees in different locations. Each case, they say, they immediately contacted the employer who disciplined them, they were immediately fired, those with regard to two and the third case, the employee was disciplined but remains with the contractor.

No reason to believe they did anything to the files. They say they are investigating. They say they briefed Senator Obama’s office on this issue this afternoon. That’s when senior management at the State Department first became aware.

We’re looking at the issue if there’s anything more as to why they did other than inappropriate curiosity, they’ll be asking the inspector general of the State Department who’ll conduct a review.

But the problem, Joe DiGenova, with that is—the senior manager of the State Department is just becoming aware of this, this afternoon?

DIGENOVA: I find that incomprehensible. I cannot imagine that someone—if this has been maintained at the lower levels of the department, the people at the lower levels of the department who kept it down there, need to be disciplined. This is incomprehensible to me in the modern era.

ABRAMS: Is Andrea Mitchell with us? Because—Andrea, are you with us? She’s not ready yet. If she gets ready because the issue that I think is very important here is the timing, as Joe DiGenova has just laid it out.

DIGENOVA: Mind boggling.

ABRAMS: Yes. I mean, the question of: What did they know and when did they know it? I mean, we ask this in just about every investigation and big case but here it is absolutely crucial to know. We’re talking about breaches in January the 9th, February 21st, and March the 14th. And now, only moments ago, the spokesperson for the State Department is saying there that the senior management of the State Department first became aware of it, it would appear from these notes, this afternoon.

Now, the “Washington Times” reporting that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was notified of the breach yesterday, but regardless, yesterday, this afternoon, we’re talking about these trips. And again, Joe, there are these specific monitoring systems that are in place, specifically to prevent something like this from happening and to notify officials if someone like a low level contractor is snooping in someone like Barack Obama’s files.

DIGENOVA: Yes, after my investigation back in the 90s, the Department of State instituted technical monitoring systems so that they could detect when someone was improperly accessing files. And apparently, that system worked in terms of detecting the initial violations.

What apparently didn’t happen was after that, there was no chain of command, communication to higher authority and whether they were protecting themselves, that is the middle managers who are protecting themselves and didn’t push the information up. It will have to be investigated.

ABRAMS: Well, what if that is true, Joe? I mean, could they face any criminal penalties? Let’s say for a moment that some middle level manager was informed that one of his or her employees had accessed the files of Barack Obama. And that person said, you know what, this would look really bad for us and didn’t do anything. Is that a possible criminal violation?

DIGENOVA: Probably not. In all likelihood, a person at that low level would have been a civil servant, not a political appointee in some regional office. And the likelihood of that being converted into a criminal violation when it’s a misdemeanor would be almost, I can’t conceive of that. However, administrate sanctions of failing to report the matter in a timely fashion to higher authority might very well be appropriate.

ABRAMS: Andrea Mitchell joins us now on the phone. Andrea, tell us, you’re joining us on the phone now. We thought we’re going to have you in person.

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I actually I am in the Washington bureau.

ABRAMS: There you are, OK.

MITCHELL: The reason I have the telephone is I’m listening to this conference call from the State Department so, I want to make sure that I don’t miss anything.

But what I’m telling you right now is that Sean McCormack and Patrick Kennedy from the State Department are saying that they are assured from their preliminary investigations that this was just imprudent curiosity. What they’ve not explained is the very question that Joe DiGenova was just asking.

First of all, those who were fired, that those (ph) who were fired no longer come under the inspector general’s management. So, how they know very much more than that and whether or not there is other independent investigation or FBI investigation, even preliminary into this.

ABRAMS: Have they explained, Andrea, why they are only calling for the inspector general now to investigate?

MITCHELL: They have not explained that nor what the lag of time was. Two of the employees who were fired worked for the same company. And there is a second company involved which is the third person who was disciplined.

So, they’ve not explain any of these inconsistencies nor why it took so long for Secretary Rice to be aware of it nor for somebody to notify Senator Obama. What they have said is that Patrick Kennedy who does have ambassadorial rank will be going to Senator Obama’s office tomorrow. So that they are going to actually go to the office belatedly as it is and visit with people in the Washington, in the Senate office to explain what happened.

ABRAMS: All right. Andrea, throughout this conversation, if you can please interrupt us at anytime with anything that they are saying that you think is particularly relevant. In the meantime, you can stay with us as we continue this conversation.

But Joe DiGenova, part of the issue here is perception. Part of the issue here is the fact that you’re talking about a presidential candidate and the notion that low level State Department contract employees can access the information of Barack Obama. It does lead, I think, myself and many in the public to think, my goodness, if they can access Barack Obama’s passport information with no real problem, then, they can access anyone.

DIGENOVA: They certainly can. And welcome to the world of big government. When a government gets as large as the United States government is and has as many functions which the American people want it to have, it requires there’s to be an inordinately large number of people who have access to very private information and this is inevitable.

ABRAMS: But when your investigation was ongoing with regard to the alleged breach with regard to Bill Clinton’s information, what was the key element of the investigation? What were you real really looking for?

DIGENOVA: Who did it? It’s a little different. You see, when I conducted my investigation, there was no monitoring system. We had to begin from scratch to find out things.

And the State Department was relatively incompetent at even gathering information and documents and fundamental—even telephone information from the bowls (ph) of the State Department, it was hard to get.

That doesn’t exist anymore. Now, there’s a monitoring system. And apparently, these people were discovered almost immediately.

ABRAMS: And we’re just learning again, from this conference call of the State Department is having as we speak about this, David Shuster, reporting at that inspector general didn’t learn about this until today.

DIGENOVA: Remarkable. Absolutely, that is a stunning revelation and I think, it really shows a complete management failure at the midlevel management of the department which would be the civil servant level, by the way, not political. That means that the civil servants circled the wagons to protect themselves.

ABRAMS: Is Eric Holder still with us?

HOLDER: I am.

ABRAMS: Yes, OK. I say it again, co-chair of the Obama campaign, Eric Holder, is on the phone with us as well. You’re just learning this, as are we that the inspector general, the person we’ve been talking about who would lead this first level of investigation didn’t learn about this.

And we’re talking about breaches that occurred in January, February and March—January 9th, February 21st, and March the 14th, that the inspector general did not learn about this until today. Both, in your role as the Obama co-chair and as your role as a former federal prosecutor, what do you think of that?

HOLDER: That to me is mind boggling. The fact that the inspector general, the person charged with the responsibility of monitoring these kinds of things did not find out this until today or yesterday, whenever, is, for me, an indication, I think as Joe said, of a major administrative failure or some kind of willful behavior on the part of people who knew about this and made the decision not to report this up to chain.

ABRAMS: Let me give you another piece of information from the conference call. Sean McCormack, the State Department’s spokesperson admitting that “they’ve failed.” Quote, unquote. He admits they failed.

“All of these involved employees of contractors, rather than U.S. government employees. I will fully acknowledge that this information should have been passed up the line. It was dealt with by the office level,” this is exactly what Joe DiGenova said a moment ago, “by the office level supervisors who took immediate steps, but I will admit they failed,” these are notes (ph), “but basically they failed to get the information up the chain to a sufficiently high level.”

Now, this is important because now we’re learning that they are confirming that people knew that a presidential candidate’s passport information had been improperly accessed and they probably knew, it would seem, for months. And yet, it never made its way up the “food chain,” so to speak by the office level supervisors.

I mean, this to me, is almost stunning information, Joe DiGenova.

DIGENOVA: Well, you know, if you’ve ever been in government, Dan, on a daily basis, things of monumental incompetence happened when you have a government this size. And you usually, when people start looking for, you know, bad things, they think that everything is evil. Most government mistakes are basically incompetence.

But this failure to report up, it would be one thing if there were one incident but there were two incidents, one in January, one in February, and then, in mid-March. It seems to me that the failure of two of those incidents to be reported upward that long probably means that there was a conscious effort to suppress the information.

You know, it’d be one thing for one thing to fail to get to move northward in a bureaucracy, but when two don’t, that means that lower or middle level managers decided that their careers would be harmed if it went higher up and they stopped it. But that’s a failure of management at all levels though, and means people aren’t asking questions.

ABRAMS: Eric Holder, any information about Barack Obama. I’m sure that there’s nothing in there that is particularly, I mean, is sensitive, it’s all sensitive information. But is there anything in particular that Barack Obama would be particularly furious about?

HOLDER: No, I don’t think so. But I think he would have the same level of anger as any American citizen would have knowing that, you know, very private records are in a government file have somehow been accessed because somebody decided they just wanted to look at them and be concerned about what was done with that information once it was obtained inappropriately by these people who worked for the State Department, these contractors.

DIGENOVA: Yes, and what’s really disturbing, Dan, is that these records aren’t out in electronic form. This is not just a file jacket, you know, located in some green file cabinet, you know, in some regional office, in a warehouse that’s not air-conditioned.

These are electronic files now. They can be sent anywhere instantaneously. And that needs to be investigated fully to see if that happened.

ABRAMS: And remember, we keep using the term disseminated, if they’ve been disseminated. If this information’s been disseminated, that could be a serious crime. But disseminated could mean, Joe, and correct me if I’m wrong, telling someone.

DIGENOVA: Absolutely.

ABRAMS: I mean, it doesn’t mean you have to send it out on a mass e-mail. There could be a crime here if someone goes home and tells their family, hey, guess what, I looked at Barack Obama’s files today. And he traveled to here and here and on his passport application, he said x, y, and z.

DIGENOVA: Absolutely, you’re technically correct. That would be a violation of the Privacy Act.

ABRAMS: David Shuster is back with us. David, we’ve been talking about the fact that these were low level employees, at least according to the State Department. What does that mean?

SHUSTER: Well, Dan, it means—well, first of all step a sec and we’ve heard the State Department say that they believed that this was imprudent curiosity. But it’s important to clarify now, the reason they believe that, is not because the inspector general reached that conclusion, it’s not because the person who was in charge of this particularly Consular Affairs Office made that conclusion.

They’re basing that only on the immediate supervisors in the particular office where the contractors worked. In other words, they have said on this call that they’d believe it was imprudent curiosity because that’s what they’ve learned from these contractors’ immediate bosses.

ABRAMS: Wait. The same people “who are to blame,” quote, unquote, for not bringing this up the food chain. And then, we’re hearing from Sean McCormack that they didn’t learn about it because these office managers didn’t tell them, and now what you’re saying that we have to rely on them for the information, that the only reason they went in there was imprudent curiosity?

SHUSTER: That’s exactly it. And that’s why this is perhaps an even bigger story now because, again, when people hear that the State Department has made the conclusion that this was innocent, no, the higher echelons of the State Department haven’t made that conclusion, middle-management has not made that conclusion, the inspector general has not made that conclusion.

That is based solely on the direct office supervisors where these contractors worked. And again, it’s embarrassing enough for the State Department that in fact, it was the immediate supervisors who are essentially keeping this and have now passed long to where that all (ph) this was innocent, but the fact of the matter is, Dan, that the inspector general who was supposed to, as your guest have pointed, who are supposed to be called in and investigate this stuff, they didn’t know about it until today.

Their investigations are just started. So, all of these questions about the intent and was information disseminated and what was driving these people to get this information, the only thing the State Department knows about all of these questions is based on the word of what the immediate office supervisors on this very small office have portrayed. That’s it.

ABRAMS: All right. Joining us now on the phone is former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. Thanks very much for taking the time. All right.

If you were the secretary of state right now, based on everything you have heard, would you be pretty furious?

LAWRENCE EAGLEBURGER, FMR. SECRETARY OF STATE: Oh, I’d be very furious. But I must suggest to the gentleman that you use a little less hysterical reporting here. The situation I was involved in was the Clinton passport was much worse than this one as far as I can tell from what I’ve heard.

And in that case, I learned about it in the first instance and I was acting secretary, I think, anyway, I heard about it and immediately turned it over to the inspector general. He has to running an inspection, sent it to the Justice Department and the attorney general appointed a special prosecutor namely, Mr. DiGenova.

I hope he’s still on. If he is, he can hopefully re-enforce my own recollections of all of this. But, in our case, it was much worse than what I think is going on.

ABRAMS: But Secretary Eagleburger, the problem is, that we’re talking about incidents that occurred on January 9th, February the 21st, and March the 14th. And the fact that it is just being learned now, today, by the inspector general -

EAGLEBURGER: Yes, I know. I know, I know. But let me finish because I hope that will put it in better context because in the case that I was involved in, there was no question that several officials in the department who were appointed there politically from the administration were involved in what they were looking for was any information on the Democratic president at that time.

And they looked into his passport application. So, I don’t know they found anything, but their intention was obviously to use it in the campaign. I hope we closed it off fast enough. I think we closed it off fast enough. That it never was used.

But in the meantime, I ended up firing an assistant secretary and at least one or two other officials once we heard about it. But it was directly political reasons. I don’t believe that’s the case in this case.

ABRAMS: All right. It may not be but faith in the system, I think it’s equally important to simply say that as of now we don’t know if there was political motivation. We don’t know that. And I think that’s an important point to make.

EAGLEBURGER: I think that it’s pretty clear there wasn’t. If it were, it wouldn’t been this, and (INAUDIBLE) for you now, for the State Department, they do have these methods of finding out who hit fire. We didn’t have that.

And I have to tell you, if we’re going to do this for the purpose of using for political purposes, they were stupid in the way they went about it.

ABRAMS: Well, people as you know, people do stupid things all the time in this country for stupid reasons. We’re going to take a break.

When we come back: Our continuing coverage of this breaking news in connection with three State Department contract employees, improperly accessing the passport records of Senator Barack Obama.

Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

DAN ABRAMS, HOST: We are continuing with our breaking news at this hour. The State Department confirming that there has been a security violation involving unauthorized access to the passport file of Sen. Barack Obama. State Department officials now saying that Obama’s records were accessed by three people on three different occasions earlier this year: January 9th, February 21st and March 14th. Two contract employees have been terminated; the third individual disciplined.

The State Department now saying in a press conference that they are holding, as we speak, that the inspector general of the State will conduct a review. The Obama campaign is speaking out. The spokesperson Bill Burton saying in a statement, “This is serious matter that merits a complete investigation. We demand to know who looked at Sen. Obama’s passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal the security breach.

Now, in the last couple of minutes from that call, we have gotten a little more information from the spokesperson for the State Department who are saying there’s no reason to believe that they disclosed this information to anyone else, but it’s a serious and valid question on the basis of the work this afternoon. There’s no reason to believe it, but they say they are not staking out a position that it could have happened but, I’m not saying it did either.

So the bottom line is they are being careful here not to take a firm position on whether this information was disseminated. Why is that important? Because if it was disseminated as a legal matter, that could be a felony, even if they disclosed it to friends or family. Of course, the greater concern would be that they had taken that information in an effort to politicize it.

Now, the State Department at this hour saying that there is nothing to indicate this was political motivation. They are saying that it was simply curiosity. But as David Shuster reported, that information at this time is coming from the very same managers who didn’t disclose the information to higher level State Department officials. So, as many questions as there are answers.

Let’s check in with our panel. We are joined by chief campaign correspondent, Tucker Carlson. Lawrence O’Donnell is with us as well. Andrea Mitchell is with us and David Shuster.

All right, Tucker. Let’s talk about this politically. This is obviously a political disaster for the Bush Administration, but they are not running for president.

TUCKER CARLSON, MSNBC SENIOR CAMPAIGN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It’s a political windfall for Barack Obama. It’s infuriating. Every person can relate to this. As Joe DiGenova suggested and he would know, I don’t think it’s uncommon. It happens in government, it happens in the private sector. It happens to celebrities in hospitals.

As we know, everyone can relate to how infuriating it is to have your privacy violated. It comes at a perfect time, not to be crass, not to minimize it, but a perfect time politically for Barack Obama. We’re not talking about Rev. Wright and we won’t be for quite some time. This will leave the papers tomorrow, and you’re going to have a series of news conferences by Obama and his campaign, expressing, in my view, justified outrage for this. It absolutely helps Obama in every way. Again, I’m not trying to minimize it. I’d be furious if it were me, but the bottom line is it’s great for him.

ABRAMS: But you know, Tucker, this has long been a concern of critics of this administration, that there is no respect for privacy, so to speak. Yes, they will say -

CARLSON: Well, I mean that’s a macro critique.

(CROSSTALK)

ABRAMS: No, no. Tucker, it’s about perception.

CARLSON: Right.

ABRAMS: The world is about how people perceive things.

CARLSON: Right.

ABRAMS: And when you hear a big news story like this coming out that a presidential candidate’s records were improperly accessed, it is going to feed into the sense in this country that individual’s privacy had not been respected enough, rightly or wrongly, linking it to other things.

CARLSON: There’s no question. You’re absolutely right. And I think there are real concerns about the Bush Administration’s prosecution of the “war on terror” and what it means to our privacy. That’s all real and I share the concerns. But that’s too easy.

I mean the truth is, as Joe DiGenova’s many years in federal service can tell you, this is the nature of bureaucracy. It’s the nature of it. It happens all the time. It doesn’t make it less wrong. It’s more wrong and more upsetting. This is what you get when the federal government has a lot of your personal information. It’s awful.

ABRAMS: Yes. Lawrence O’Donnell joins us. Yes, look. We understand that there are bureaucracies and in bureaucracies there are failures. It is hard to believe, is it not, that you have these incidents occurring in January, February and March. And whether the people who went in to access Obama’s information were doing it for political reasons or not, you have to believe that the reason that it didn’t make its way up the food chain, meaning if the middle-level managers were informed about it. They knew Barack Obama’s passport files had been accessed and no one was told, there was probably a political motivation or self-preservation motivation, at the least, not to disclose it.

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL, POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, there’s always self preservation motivation in the bureaucracy. And you know, you heard Larry Eagleburger, former secretary of state, lean immediately toward an innocent - which is to say, an explanation of stupidity, more than anything, conspiratorial in this.

And I have to tell you, my experience in government, working on the Democratic side of the government in the senate, points me to that direction initially and always on this kinds of stories.

Now, I think there’s a tremendous amount to be developed here. This could turn out to be anything. However, the possibility of it being mere stupidity by three people who didn’t know what they were doing and who hit those trip wires in the computer system is a very high likelihood of a bureaucracy of this size. That wouldn’t surprise me at all.

And the amount of privacy we have now on these records is dramatically higher than it used to be. When the IRS first got computerized, anybody sitting in the Andover office in Massachusetts could go look at, you know, Frank Sinatra’s tax return if they felt like it at anytime and no one would know it. We’ve imposed an awful lot of restrictions on this kind of information, in fact.

ABRAMS: Is David Shuster still with us? Because one of the questions that I want to know is - Look, you’ve got to question whether these contract employees, when they start there, and you may not know the answer to this question, whether they are informed about the basic rules, which is, I’m sure they know. You are not allowed to access the information of other individuals that isn’t something you’re dealing with, of course. But the question is, do they know that, for example, look - by the way, if you access high profile individuals, we’ve got a system in place where it’s automatically going to go to a higher level and people are going to know.

DAVID SHUSTER, NBC CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dan, they’re notified actually when they go into the file, as it has been described to me, there’s essentially a pop up that says the following information is private. You’ll be violating the privacy act if you use it for various purposes that are not allowed.

That doesn’t stop them, however, from going ahead and looking at the information, collecting information and going through the file. So they know, right when they click into it, that they’re not supposed to be there.

But, again, the key question in all of this is these office supervisors who made the decision that these people should be fired or who first collected the information, why didn’t they pass that information up the chain of command? And secondly, why should we believe these office supervisors when they say, “Oh, well, the information wasn’t disseminated”? I mean, they haven’t conducted a formal investigation. Nobody else knows.

ABRAMS: And Tucker, that’s what the investigation will assess. But, the timing - you know, January 9th, this is very shortly, I believe, after Obama wins Iowa. You know, again, I don’t want to necessarily attribute this to some sort of a conspiracy and political motivation. But, look, we’re talking about three individuals doing it this year in the time period Barack Obama has become, you know, a very serious leading Democratic candidate.

CARLSON: God, I’m amazed that we know this soon. I mean we can’t get documents from the Second World War because it’s still classified. I mean the nature of government is secrecy. It’s concealment from us. I mean that’s just what it is. I mean always and everywhere. Anybody who’s lived in Washington can tell you that. So, I’m sort of impressed, you know, we know three months later.

ABRAMS: The conference call from the State Department just concluded. We’re going to take a break. When we come back, we’re going to get a full report on exactly what the State Department is saying in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ABRAMS: The State Department has just concluded a press briefing, conference call where they have tried to explain how three State Department contract employees improperly accessed Barack Obama’s passport information and why the State Department only found out about it this afternoon. We’re going to have a full report in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ABRAMS: Continuing with our breaking news coverage of a security breach at the State Department, Sen. Barack Obama’s passport records had been improperly accessed by three State Department contract employees on three different occasions earlier this year - January 9th, February the 21st and just this past Friday, March the 14th. Two contract employees have been terminated, a third individual has been disciplined. Now, the State Department has just wrapped up a press briefing, a conference call, where they tried to answer a lot of questions about what they knew, when they knew it, how they found out and what they are going to do about it.

Andrea Mitchell, our chief foreign affairs correspondent, has been monitoring the call. All right. Andrea, I think the real question that people are going to be interested in is, why did it take them so long to find out.

ANDREA MITCHELL, CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, in fact, Sean McCormack, at the highest level, who works of course directly for the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, didn’t know about it until a reporter called him. So, they did not hear about this from the mid-level or lower level aspects of the consular office and passport office for whom these contract employees worked.

And his conclusion that it was just imprudent curiosity was passed on to him by the immediate supervisors of those contract employees. Two out of the three were fired; one was disciplined. So there has been no real investigation. The inspector general only got into it today.

As pointed out today by Joe DiGenova, one of your earlier guests, that inspector general will have no jurisdiction to compel any kind of interview these two fired employees. Only if they choose to comply and voluntarily give information will they be able to be interviewed.

No forwarding of this, referral of this to the Justice Department has been made because they are going to have this preliminary inspector general’s investigation. But at this stage, all the inspector general can really do is find out why the State Department employees didn’t tell their superiors.

Nothing was told to Barack Obama’s senate office until late this afternoon and that only at a mid-level. Patrick Kennedy, an ambassador in charge of management for the State Department will be going to Sen. Obama’s office tomorrow.

So there is outrage on the part of Sen. Obama’s office. This has been a clear violation of privacy. And yet to be determined is what might be significant on those three dates. Because as you can well determine, the first was only six days after the Iowa vote, which was the surprising and very large victory that propelled Barack Obama into frontrunner status. And then, you can see that the second date was February 21st after Super Tuesday. So you can see that there is correlation between Sen. Obama’s political success and these allegedly or presumably innocent inquiries. It doesn’t add up.

ABRAMS: Well, Andrea, as David Shuster was pointing out before, something pops up on the screen when individuals access information like this. So they can’t just claim, “I was just browsing and I figured out I’ll go through Obama’s records and I looked at it and I moved -“ It’s not like going to a Web site where you just check in and you move on.

MITCHELL: If there isn’t something more sinister involved, which would involve opposition research by the administration or by another campaign or by other parties or the Republican Party. But if there is something more sinister going on, this is such gross incompetence in terms of the management in reporting up of these obvious violations. There’s going to have to be a lot of people answering to it. Secretary Rice, by the way, was out of the country. She was in Moscow, got back today, did diplomatic work, was meeting with Thai officials.

ABRAMS: Did she know anything? I mean the “Washington Times” -

MITCHELL: Well, presumably by now, she does.

ABRAMS: Yes, the “Washington Times” had reported that yesterday she knew. That seems to be impossible, right?

MITCHELL: Well, she could have been informed in Moscow, but Sean McCormack is saying he only found about it today. So I suspect that that is the “Washington Time’s” dateline tomorrow, saying that she only learned about it today.

ABRAMS: Yes.

MITCHELL: I think that’s what made them post this in tomorrow’s paper.

ABRAMS: Fair enough. Good point. Eric Holder is still with us, campaign co-chair for Barack Obama. Again, we’re hearing about what they say in this press conference. We’re learning more about exactly who knew what when. But all we’re really learning is that there were low level individuals who failed to tell higher level individuals, or at least that’s what they’re saying, about what they saw and what they knew. The timing, as Andrea Mitchell points out, Mr. Holder, is significant, is it not?

ERIC HOLDER, CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIR FOR BARACK OBAMA (on the phone): Yes, there’s an awful lot here that needs to be looked at. Now, I don’t want to be an alarmist here, but if you look at the dates that Andrea was talking about and the events that are near the dates, that is of concern.

The fact that you have three people at three separate occasions looking at these documents, that is of concern. What was looked at, why was it looked at, who looked at it, was anybody told? And what about the decision not the pass the information up?

Is there a benign administrative explanation to that or is there something perhaps more sinister? Is there a cover up here? Again, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but the notion everybody seems to be going to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is just the way bureaucracies work.

It’s a little too early to make that determination. There are too many questions out there that have not been answered.

ABRAMS: All right. We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, our continuing breaking news coverage, in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ABRAMS: Continuing with our breaking news tonight, the State Department has just wrapped up a conference call with the media trying to explain what they knew and when they knew it about Barack Obama’s passport files being improperly accessed by three individuals at the State Department what they are calling contract employees. Two have been fired. One has been disciplined, but on three different occasions, on January the 9th, on February the 21st, and on March the 14th.

Now, we’re just getting this information in about Secretary of State Rice because the question has been asked when did she learn this. Secretary Rice was informed about this today by her senior staff.

As Sean McCormack, the spokesperson for the State Department has said - he said he heard about it from a reporter and it appears he was the first senior staffer to hear and then report it to Rice. Her reaction, quote, “She had a lot of questions about the system. She wanted to make sure that we did a full investigation of the matter.

Laurent O’Donnell is with us. Lawrence, the idea that the only reason the highest level individuals in the State Department found out about Barack Obama’s passport information being accessed is because a reporter called them, is stunning.

O’DONNELL: It is an amazing unfolding of what we have so far. I think the March 14th date, Dan, is crucial. There’s something different about that case. That’s the one person who was not fired. It’s also the most recent one. Within a week we have, that March 14th incident is now public. It seems to me there was something about the March 14th that provoked more scrutiny than the earlier ones.

And then, there was a review backward from that to find these other incidents. I wouldn’t call it an investigation, because clearly, what we’ve established in this hour is nothing resembling a real investigation has occurred here.

ABRAMS: Andrea Mitchell is still with us. Andrea, do we know why - did they explain why on this conference call these two individuals were fired and one was disciplined?

MITCHELL: Not as far as I heard. Now, I should point out that there was a period of time when I was on the air with you and I didn’t hear every little thing. We had other people on the call. I’ll check that back. But I don’t think that they explained, because they themselves don’t seem to know very much about this. It seems to me that they just found out today at the higher levels. And they are now dialing back and trying to find out why they were not informed earlier.

And Lawrence is exactly right. It was the March 14th incident that obviously triggered something. And then they looked back and inquired as to whether this had happened before and found out that in fact had happened three times in all that we know about. And each time at fairly significant periods of political activity involving Barack Obama’s electoral votes.

ABRAMS: Andrea Mitchell, I have to let you go and I know you’re going to continue working the phones and working on the stories.

MITCHELL: You bet.

ABRAMS: Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Eric Holder is still with us, co-chair for the Obama campaign, but also a long time federal prosecutor at the highest levels of government. Let me ask you, do you have any theory as to why one person was disciplined and two were fired?

HOLDER: I have no idea. But again, this just becomes more curious as we learn more facts. Why two people would be fired and one person only disciplined - again, there would have to be an investigation, a review of those kinds of employment decisions.

This is just for me, extremely disturbing and I’m very worried about what I just said, because I think there is a pattern here of some sort that may be connected to important dates in the campaign. Again, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I would - (UNINTELLIGIBLE)that I think at this point be dismissed.

ABRAMS: And Lawrence O’Donnell, I’ve got to believe that in the context of this investigation, that is going to be one of the things they’re going to look at. Is there anything to the timing?

O’DONNELL: Absolutely. And, you know, we’ve made the point that the inspector general of the State Department does have jurisdiction over current employees and not people who have been fired. But the FBI can look at those people who have been fired starting tonight. I mean if the FBI is watching TV tonight, they know there are serious questions to talk to at least three people about, about possible federal crimes involving the files.

ABRAMS: Mr. Holder, do you agree?

HOLDER: There’s no question that people at the Justice Department through the command center are undoubtedly talking about this case right now. That I wouldn’t doubt.

ABRAMS: All right. This is a really sort of an amazing story. And there are potential legal ramifications to come. We shall see. Thanks to Lawrence O’Donnell and thank you, Eric Holder. Appreciate it. That’s it for this special edition of VERDICT. See you back here tomorrow.

Transcript of 'Countdown with Keith Olberman' for March 20, 2008

Transcript:

KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST: Breaking news at this hour: Sources at the campaign of Senator Barack Obama confirming there has been some sort of security violation involving unauthorized access to the personal passport file belonging to Senator Obama.

Details are still sketchy at this hour, but the Obama campaign is expected to issue a statement within moments. And we will bring it to you here as soon as we have it.
(voice over): Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow?

Reverent Wright unexpectedly hurts Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Reverend Wright unexpectedly hurts John McCain’s campaign. Two Wrights do make a wrong.

The Democratic doomsday strategy: Senator Clinton refusing to deny reports that her advisers have been telling superdelegates that Jeremiah Wright makes Barack Obama unelectable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, my campaign has been making the case that I am the most electable, that I have said that for a year or more. I believe I am the person best able to meet the challenges that our country faces as commander in chief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: ABC News says she was then asked again if her campaign specifically using Jeremiah Wright, says the senator shrugged and did not answer.

And the McCain campaign and the pastor: It distributed a racist video tying Wright and Obama and Obama’s wife Malcolm X and the wearing of American flag pins. The McCain staffer involved suspended, but not fired.

And: Guess who didn’t like Obama’s speech?

Even the part in which he said it would be wrong to:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: “To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable,” says Geraldine Ferraro, today.

And the McCain corrections of the day: All extremists are al Qaeda. No, it wasn’t a lie or conflation, just a slip up, the four times he said it this week.

Oh, and the time he said it on February 28th?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, ® PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Al Qaeda is there, they are functioning. They are supported in many ways by the Iranians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: All right. Play the standard “old man yells at cloud” correction tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: I’m sorry the Iranians are training extremists, not al Qaeda.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Now, a new one from Israel about the Jewish holiday, Purim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN, (I) CONNECTICUT: It’s my fault that I said to Senator McCain that this is the Israeli version of Halloween. It is of a sense that the kids dress up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: All that and more: Now on COUNTDOWN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: Of Halloween here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN (on camera): Good evening, this is Thursday, March 20th, 229 days until the 2008 presidential election.

Again, we are waiting a statement from the campaign of Senator Barack Obama after an Internet report tonight that the personal passport file of Senator Obama has been in some way compromised. Details are still sketchy, but the Obama campaign is to make a statement about that report and an investigation of it within moments. We will bring it to you as soon as we have it from them.

Our fifth story on the COUNTDOWN: Not unauthorized access but unexpected interest. The two other presidential campaigns surprisingly today, invoking the controversy over Reverend Jeremiah Wright and that involves them playing grab ass with at least one third rail of American politics.

Senator McCain on his way from his fact-finding trip to the Middle East, stopping in London for a fundraising luncheon, his campaign announcing that it has suspended a staff member in its political department for circulating a video that splices together clips from Reverend Wright’s most controversial sermons with Senator Obama’s own comments about his former pastor with Michelle Obama’s remarks that her husbands campaign makes her proud to be, truly proud to be an American for the first time, while also linking Senator Obama to Malcolm X, to John Carlos and Tommie Smith. The two 1968 Olympians who raised their first in a black power salute.

The entire thing set to the public enemy song, “Fight the Power” and post it on Youtube. The McCain campaign is saying that that staffer acted in violation of the type of campaign it intends to run.

Senator Clinton meanwhile, intending to run this phase of her campaign, raising doubts about her opponents electability. And in the undue twist, legitimacy with Reverend Wright apparently invoked. Senator Clinton is taking questions, at least some questions, from reporters outside of diner in Terre Haute, Indiana, where voters will head to the polls on May 6th.

“The New York Times” reporting this morning that aides to Senator Clinton told them, in the words of the paper, quote, “They had spent recent days making the case to wavering superdelegates, that Mr. Obama’s association with Mr. Wright would doom their party in the general election.” The paper adding that, “The argument could be Mrs. Clinton’s last hope for winning this contest.”

With that as back draft, Senator Clinton welcoming an opportunity to question Senator Obama’s electability in a general election in a general sense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Well, my campaign has been making the case that I am the most electable, that I have said that for a year or more. I believe I am the person best able to meet the challenges that our country faces as commander in chief and to manage the economy as president. And I believe that I am the candidate best able to beat John McCain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Before continuing with that, NBC News at this hour has confirmed that there is an investigation into a report of a security breach, not described in any other detail than that, into the personal passport file that would involve the State Department in some way of Senator Barack Obama.

To repeat: NBC News is now able to confirm that there is an investigation, at least, into this report that in some ways, Senator Obama’s personal passport file at the State Department has been in some way, compromised in terms of its security.

We’ll continue to follow that story up and we’re waiting for a statement from the Obama campaign at any moment.

In the interim, ABC News reported that in a follow up to that last comment from Senator Clinton, quote, “Clinton was then asked specifically if her campaign was pushing the Wright story. She shrugged and took the next question, ignoring the reporter.”

With the Michigan legislature having adjourned today, Senator Clinton is also pinning her hopes for the nomination on Senator Obama’s legitimacy, should the Florida and Michigan delegates not be seated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I do not see how two of our largest and most significant states can be disenfranchised and left out of the process of picking our nominees without raising serious questions about the legitimacy of that nominee.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: The statement is just in from Senator Obama’s campaign:

“This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years.” This is of the letterhead of Bill Burton, the press secretary of the Obama’s campaign about the violation of the Obama passport file apparently at the State Department.

To continue the quote, “Our government’s duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes. This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama’s passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach.” Those are, again, the quotes from Obama campaign spokesman, Bill Burton.

Let’s go directly at this point to Howard Fineman, the senior Washington correspondent for “Newsweek” magazine and of course, a regular visitor with us here on MSNBC.

Howard, good evening.

HOWARD FINEMAN, NEWSWEEK: Good evening, Keith.

OLBERMANN: What do we know about this? It sounds as if that Bill Burton is assuming, we know a little bit more about it than we do. There is an apparent breach of the security of Senator Obama’s passport file and it somehow can be contributed back to the current occupants of at least, the State Department?

FINEMAN: Well, apparently so. I just got word of this a little while ago, saw that statement and got a call from somebody just shortly ago about it. My sense of it is that the administration was required, for some reason, I don’t know yet why, to inform Obama himself and his lawyers that some kind of breach had happened.

Now, the questions obviously are going to be: Who breached it and why? Whether information from his file got out, whether the Obama campaign knows about that? What aspects of his travels people were looking at?

It’s all too reminiscent for those with a long memory of the fact that the first Bush administration rummaged through Bill Clinton’s passport file back in ‘92. So, now, we have Bush Two and his administration, apparently rummaging through the passport records of yet another Democratic candidate.

OLBERMANN: There is no implication of any tampering with this file because obviously, if somebody went to that degree, that could make for all sorts of problems suggesting that a man was somewhere where he was not, if you change his records in the State Department. But there’s no implication of that, but there is an implication that somebody was looking.

And moreover, again, going through Bill Burton’s statement: Why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach? Evidently, this happened sometime in the distance. This is in the distant past. This is not a recent event.

FINEMAN: Right. Don’t forget the question of Obama’s travels has already come up both positive and negative. He’s talked on his book about traveling back to Kenya, to look at his roots. Then, you have somebody circulating a picture of him in native garb from Somalia.

So, the issue has already come up. Barack Obama is a citizen of the world. And there are many positive aspects to that. It looks like somebody within the administration was curious about what downsides they might be able to find. That’s all I can say at this point.

OLBERMANN: Here’s something we’re getting out of our reporting out of the State Department.

State Department officials are confirming to NBC News: Two contract employees of the department were terminated from their jobs. There have been firings over this. And a third individual was discipline for accessing the passport records of Senator Obama, quote, without a need to do so. These three people who had access to passport records of Senator Obama were contract employees of the department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs.

A monitoring system, according to this source, “was tripped when an employee accessed records of a high-profile individual. When the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the record’s access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified.”

The State Department uses clear contractors to design, again, quoting the source now, “build and maintain our system and clear contract employees provide support to governmental employees and several steps of passport processing include data entry, files searches, customer service and quality control.”

This is, again, the spokesman at the State Department telling NBC News, confirming that there’d been two State Department firings contract employees, people who improperly accessed the passport files of Senator Barack Obama, obviously, one of the two Democratic candidates for president.

Each time an employee logs on, he or she acknowledges the records are protected by the Privacy Act and that there only available on a “need to know” basis.

That’s what we have out of NBC News reporting out of the State Department. What did you hear in there that adds to our understanding of what the story is, Howard?

FINEMAN: Well, this was a case of curiosity overcoming the law and the question would be: What the contract employees were up to? Who they knew outside of the State Department? What contacts they might have had politically in Republican circles, one must assume, or other circles?

Let’s not just assume Republicans. Who knows (INAUDIBLE) -- key questions are going to be: Who were these fired employees? Who do they know? Who might they have talked to about what they saw? What did they see? Were they looking for something going in?

This is a huge story and it could play out in many directions in the administration, in the ranks of Republican candidates or even in the ranks of rival Democratic candidates. We just don’t know at it point. But it’s highly significant and it real puts in the shade all the other stuff we’ve been talking about for the last few days.

OLBERMANN: And now, we have a time frame for it too. We have another report out of our crack department at the State Department, the unauthorized activity occurring, involving the Obama passport information took place in January 2008. So, approximately two months ago, we don’t when in January.

But this is not something that happened last week and they apparently informed Senator Obama, or at least his campaign, based on what Bill Burton, the press secretary is just saying. Obviously, immediately, they appear to found this out, I’m inferring from reading between the lines here of what Bill Burton has said, and I’m going to quote this again in a moment. That they found out about this perhaps as late as this afternoon, that’s what this sounds like, doesn’t it?

FINEMAN: Well, that’s amazing. That sets light years in political terms. And don’t forget, in January, Obama was just on the rise as a national figure. What that means in terms of who was curious and why, we don’t know. But he was still just coming on and what were the first of the primaries and making his first political statements by getting ready to and winning the Iowa caucuses. So, he was—it’s just absolutely fascinating and beyond that, I really can’t say.

OLBERMANN: All right. Let me just recap this again for those who are joining us in progress of what we can amiably put together.

A report broke late this evening, I should say late this evening, late this evening in terms of our preparation for COUNTDOWN. It broke about 7:30 this evening, Eastern Time. That there was some kind of investigation and there had been firings and a security breach at the State Department involving unauthorized and access to the personal passport file of Senator Barack Obama.

The first confirmation of this came from sources within the Obama campaign a little bit before 8:00 o’clock Eastern tonight, and then, a statement came from press secretary, Bill Burton of the Obama campaign.

Let me read it to you again in full.

“This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy even from an administration that have shown little regard for either over the last eight years.” Pinning the blame precisely on the Bush administration for this, “Our government’s duty,” resumes the statement, “is to protect the private information of the American, not use it for political purposes.”

That gives you a hint as to what their understanding is of what happened to this, little look inside the files of the Obama file at the State Department. “This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama’s passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach?”

That’s Bill Burton’s statement.

We know from our reporting by NBC News at the State Department that this occurred in January of 2008. And there is an investigation going internally at the State Department right now. Two contract employees of the department have been terminated, fired from their jobs, a third individual disciplined for accessing the passport records, quote, “without a need to do so.” Three people who had access to passport records were contract employees of the department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs and a monitoring system was tripped when an employee accesses records of high-profile individuals and we don’t know more beyond that.

Howard?

FINEMAN: Well, Keith. The other thing you immediately want to ask is: Who else in the State Department knew what? Just because these two contract players have been sacked doesn’t mean a lot of other people up the chain of command not only learned about this breach of security but may have also been curious to know what was in Barack Obama’s passport file.

So, the next round of questions is going to go, obviously, to Condi Rice and others at the State Department. What did you know and when did you know it? Were these contract players, people who were well known to you? Did they talk about what they have seen?

This is a lot of time, as I say, this is light years in political terms from January to now for this to have been rattling around within the State Department and within the administration and beyond the State Department, what did the White House know and when did they know it?

George Bush isn’t running again, but he has a lot of interest in seeing a Republican succeed him. And this goes way back to just at that the time when Obama was really coming on as a major figure, who was for the first time somebody you could think as a possible nominee of the Democratic Party and the challenger to whoever the Republicans would put up.

OLBERMANN: All right. We know now that giving these people the absolute benefit of the doubt at the State Department, let’s assume for the sake of argument, this occurred on January 31st, somewhere in there. That’s 50 days ago.

And we also know from this statement from our reporting at the State Department, that the monitoring system that alerted the State Department that somebody was looking into these files, obviously, computer files when they should not have been. When it is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the records accessed, if the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified.

So, we are talking about, realistically, a period of time where this just sort of hung inside at least the State Department, as you suggest, a period of time of at least 50 days, nearly two months, at minimum. If this happened earlier in January, you’re pushing three months on this now. This is extraordinary.

FINEMAN: I can’t believe, don’t know, but my hypothesis would be that it could not—there’s no way it didn’t come to the attention of the Secretary of State. The fact that Barack Obama’s passport file, records had been breached, it had to have gone all the way up to the Secretary of State.

And if it went to Condi Rice, it had to have gone all the way to the White House. And there are going to be lots of questions asked about what the chain of command up from that consular office knew and when they knew it.

OLBERMANN: Yes.

FINEMAN: Not to mention what’s in the file that they were looking for.

OLBERMANN: Do we have any idea, do you have any idea, because obviously, I’m asking the question, I don’t. Do we have any idea where Consular Affairs fits into that hierarchy at the State Department? That doesn’t sound like it’s at the Secretary of State’s pay grade level.

FINEMAN: No, it doesn’t. But the Consular Affairs offices deal with embassies around the world, they deal with consular matters—American consulates all around the world. And it’s the American consulates all around the world who liaison for Americans when Americans travel abroad.

So, there may have been some contacts that the liaison officers in Consular Affairs around the world had when Obama traveled, wherever he traveled. I think, mostly, it was to Africa, I think maybe to Europe. I don’t know all the places he traveled. But all of that would be in that record and any comments by consular officials who may have dealt with him abroad would be in there as well.

And so, they would know and they might even have been reporting on what Obama was up to on those places because don’t forget, he was first an Illinois state legislator, then a United States senator. And, you know, he’s been a rising national figure now for three or four years. So, they may have been looking for whatever comments there might have been from those American officials abroad in those files.

OLBERMANN: All right, Howard Fineman of “Newsweek” and MSNBC, stay close because I think if you can get anything more on this, obviously, we want to hear about it from you.

FINEMAN: Sure.

OLBERMANN: I’m going to switch over to David Shuster, our reporter at MSNBC in Washington who can at least walk us through being the kind of guy who knows this sort of stuff. Walk us through where the Bureau of Consular Affairs where apparently this security violation occurred in Senator Obama’s passport file. Where does that fit into that hierarchy at State?

DAVID SHUSTER, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, in the flow chart, essentially, it falls under the Undersecretary of State for Management. He’s responsible for a lot of different bureaus and agencies, including the Office of Consular Affairs, as it’s called.

The person who is the undersecretary of state is Patrick F. Kennedy. He is a career foreign service officer, but he just took his position, he was just confirmed and took office in November of 2007. So, in other words, that just two months before the primary started.

But, again, in just a cursory look, Keith, Patrick F. Kennedy, no major controversies associated with him at the State Department other than some issues related to some to the embassy in Baghdad. But conceivably, he would be the person with direct knowledge if in fact, information flowed up to him about this effort to get Obama’s passport. He would have been the first in the chain of command overseeing this Office of Consular Affairs to have been told either about the breach or have been told about how the State Department was now going to handle it, now that this information had been received.

Again, Patrick F. Kennedy, a career foreign service officer. Not somebody with a deep political background at all, Keith.

OLBERMANN: Do we have any idea, do you have any idea of the context here that we’ve already established? If this occurred in January as our reporting at States suggests, I mean, we have a minimum span here of 50 days. The urgency of Bill Burton, Obama’s press secretary, statement tonight, suggests that they found out about this very recently, I would assume no earlier than today, maybe no earlier than tonight.

Do we have an idea of the protocol for violations of American citizens’ passport files, let alone U.S. senators’ passport files? How soon they are typically notified? Is this 60 days rapid fire response by State, is it extraordinarily slow? Do we any idea?

SHUSTER: Keith, I don’t know about the notification as far as the breach, but I can tell you that there was independent counsel investigation launched when Bill Clinton’s passport files were essentially breached back in 1991. That was one of the issues that led to a special counsel, an independent counsel investigating the administration of President George H. W. Bush to determine who was responsible? Was it contained? Was there information that was deliberately taken out and use for political purposes?

If memory serves me correctly, the independent counsel, the investigation at that time found that it was isolated and there had not been political harm done with the information against Bill Clinton. But that does underscore what Howard was talking about and that is what a sensitive and big story this is, when you have a presidential nominee as Barack Obama seems like he’s headed.

And in the midst of this, information an administration run by the other party, is essentially breached and perhaps, again, the big question is: How it was pointing out? What was done with this information? Was there any information that could be damaging to Barack Obama in the general election? And who at the State Department knew about it and once they knew about it, what did they do?

OLBERMANN: All right. David Shuster, like (ph) your job, that you want make a few phone calls, take that opportunity.

Now, Andrea Mitchell who has covered the State Department as well as long as anybody is joining us by phone from a plane in Washington.

Andrea, we have this pinned by the Obama campaign directly on the administration as an outrageous breach of security and privacy even from an administration who’d shown little regard for either over the last eight years. They start by saying this is the Bush administration’s fault? Is that conclusion a leap or is it a fair one, do you think?

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, it’s certainly fair to say that the Bush administration, the State Department knew about this reportedly since January and did not immediately notify the Obama campaign. So, that’s a pretty big step because they should have been immediately notified if these breach occurred, the security breach.

These contract employees were, as I understand it, hired to enter data, to work on passports in the Consular Affairs Office. So, they were not political appointees or they were not people who are in the Foreign Service or in any way part of the administration.

That said, one has to wonder well first of all, whether they were just grueling around and you know, snooping or was this more than casual? Was this opposition research from any other presidential candidates? Was it something from the administration itself going after private data on Senator Obama?

And David Shuster is actually correct that there was an investigation, I covered it back in 1992. And reached to level of a special prosecutor looking into whether the Bush administration had illegally and improperly accessed Bill Clinton’s passport data, if you recall going back to the whole question of where he has gone to Moscow as a student. Keith?

OLBERMANN: Yes. The file, Andrea, the range of what this could have been originally runs the gamut from a Watergate in like deliberate attempt to sabotage or at least to pry all the way to what you suggested that it was three guys who had access to the computer and said, let’s go find out what it says in Barack Obama’s file because we can’t find Michael Jordan’s file.

We have no idea what it was originally. But it seems to me of the top of my head hearing this story that this gap of time, which is a minimum of 50 days and could be as much closer to two and a half months. Is rather a long one for the victim of this snooping to find, is that, in your estimation, is that what’s going to be critical to this story as we move ahead covering it?

MITCHELL: Absolutely, Keith. I think that there’s no question that any individuals who have had their privacy violated this way, especially such a high-profile person, whether you’re a seating United States senator in the opposition party to say nothing of the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to be outraged, there are illegal issues here of privacy and there’s security issues.

This is a man under Secret Service protection. So, I think that the Obama campaign and Michelle and Barack Obama personally have a big grievance with people in the State Department. The minute it was discovered, it should have prompted a call, I think, to the highest levels of the State Department management, even from Secretary of State Rice personally to Barack Obama to assure him that this was being investigated.

But if you believe Bill Burton’s statement, with there’s no reason not to, the press spokesman for Barack Obama right now saying that this is the first they’re hearing of it.

OLBERMANN: How many places could this have gotten stuck in the chain of command, Andrea, I mean, just a rough estimate? Is it a couple? Is it dozens? Or with this thing could nobody at a low level have sat on this long enough so that the leaders of the State Department could have only found this out say last week. In other words, is there any chance that this sat unnoticed at the lower levels of the State for a month or more?

MITCHELL: I don’t know how because these people were fired and I just don’t understand, frankly, in any kind have heard this (INAUDIBLE) how this could not have been reported up. This is a bureaucracy. And sure, things can sit on people’s desk, but this is a pretty big deal and I can’t imagine that it wasn’t reported up.

OLBERMANN: Andrea Mitchell who’s providing extraordinary context for us on this story under extraordinary circumstances as it breaks. I’m going to thank you for the moment at least and switch back to Howard Fineman who has a little bit more when the Obama campaign found out about this. Howard?

FINEMAN: Well, I’d just talking to the people out there in Chicago, a few hours ago. It was not the campaign that was informed or indeed Obama himself directly. My understanding is that the State Department official, and I’m not sure who, and I doubt it was Condi Rice, called Obama’s Senate office to inform him on almost a kind of routine bureaucratic way that this breach has occurred.

So, as far as I know, we may learn more later. As far as I know, this was handled at an office to office level, this extraordinary thing. Now, in talking to Obama people a few points, first of all, maybe it goes without saying, but this does not involve Michelle Obama at all, it’s only Barack Obama.

And as the Obama people were pointing out to me, Obama’s passport file is a thick one. Because don’t forget, he spent a lot of his childhood in Indonesia and he traveled with his mother abroad to that part of the world. And also, don’t forget, that early in his campaign, there are all these questions about his childhood, you know, what kind of education he got, where did he studied, what kind of school that attend and so forth.

I wouldn’t doubt that his own mother was the subject of interest to these consular officials in Indonesia. So, who knows how much there is about Obama’s roots and rising in that passport file in the way it’s a key piece of biographical evidence about the citizen of the world as I called him but evidence that is his and his alone, that’s private and not meant to be looked at by other eyes without any reason.

I’m told that Obama as of now, he’s not made a statement. He hasn’t decided yet whether to make one tonight. It sounds to me like as of right now, it’s unlikely that he’ll make a statement, let the campaign speak for him for now. But I wouldn’t be surprised if by tomorrow morning, he doesn’t come out firing on this because as I mentioned, as others have pointed out, this is all too much reminiscent of what happened to Bill Clinton in 1992 with the Bush administration.

OLBERMANN: And you make it an extraordinary point about Obama’s youth and childhood and where it was spent. This is conceivably, we think of Senator Obama perhaps as a public figure since the time of his speech at the Democratic convention in 2004. Those who knew Illinois politics knew him before that into the late 90s.

But we think of him in terms of, you know, that decade in the public spotlight, large or small. This man may have had a passport from the time he was a child. This passport file probably dates back to the 70s and 60s.

FINEMAN: Yes, it does. It dates back to his childhood when he went to Indonesia as I think he was seven years old when he went with his mother. His mother was an aide worker there and an academic and an interesting person who I had contact with the embassy. I think the translation work for the embassy.

If I’m not mistaken, I’m sure that there are things, I’m guessing that there are things in the file about Obama’s family in Indonesia which would have been of interest and remain of interest probably, both to Obama’s friends and enemies. As I said, this is a lot of his life story contained in those passport files.

But as I said also, these are facts for him and him alone and for the government, not to be looked at by others without an extraordinary reason.

OLBERMANN: All right. Let me recap, Howard, so everybody who’s joining us gets the whole picture here, at least as we know it.

Senator Barack Obama’s passport file in the computers of the State Department was breached by those who do not have access to it at some point in January of this year. We don’t have a date. The result of this, according to our reporting at the State Department, two contract employees, apparently people hired to enter data—at least that was their official title—were terminated from their jobs, were fired. A third is disciplined for accessing these records without, quote, a need to do so, according to a State Department source, speaking to our reporting team in off air Washington.

Three people who had access to the passport records of the senator were contract employees of the departments Bureau of Consular Affairs, which, as you may have heard David Shuster reporting earlier this evening, is not very high up on the hierarchy at State. They got caught because, according to this source, a monitoring system was tripped when an employee accessed records of a high profile individual.

When the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the record’s access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified. And again, at that point, two employees were terminated at some point thereafter, and a third one was suspended, but nobody bothered to informed the Obama campaign, Barack Obama himself, or even Obama’s Senate office until, per Howard Fineman’s reporting, as you heard just a few moments ago, the Senate office of Senator Obama was informed matter of factly by someone of State just a few hours ago.

Our first word about this came officially from the Obama campaign—unofficially from the Obama campaign a little before 8:00 this evening, and then an official statement that came out of Press Secretary Bill Burton, which certainly was not holding back by any stretch of the imagination, that “this is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that’s shown little regard for either over the last eight years. Our government’s duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes.”

Burton continued, “this is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation. We demand to know who looked at Senator Obama’s passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach.”

Again, our estimate that under the best of circumstances, if the breach occurred at the very end of January, it happened 50 days ago. Meanwhile, we have this new reporting in from Washington right now: the State Department is organizing a conference call with top department officials in about 40 minutes from now. This was filed at the bottom of the hour.

We’re talking some conference call about ten after 9:00. For now, here is what they are saying: a senior State Department official insists there was no political motivation to these incidents. He says, they were low level contract employees doing administrative work, and they accessed the Obama records out of curiosity. This official does not believe any of this information was sent anywhere. The records were accessed on three different occasions by three separate individuals.

The first two were fired and the last incident is pending. Howard Fineman, we have dates for these now. January 9th was the first of three occasions, then February 21, and the most recent was March 14. That’s last Friday when this occurred. There had already been two incidents and no one told Senator Obama. We’re thinking of this in terms of three guys sitting around a computer. This appears to have been three separate events.

FINEMAN: It’s breathtaking. If I understand that reporting correctly, it sounds like the first two were fired for accessing the records, and then the third person accessed them and was reprimanded. I may have that sequence wrong, but the notion that three different people on three different occasions did that certainly makes you wonder, if no one else learned anything that those three different people learned.

Who were they? Whom did they talk to? What did they find out? What did they pass on? What did they gossip about to whom over drinks, where, with whom? What information were they seeking? To say that it wasn’t political—well, it probably wasn’t ordered by the White House political office, for sure. However people don’t just access somebody’s file. They were fascinated by and intrigued by and maybe worried about the prospects of this rising star, Barack Obama.

On January 9th, the first time someone accessed the file, Obama was rocketing to the top in Iowa and New Hampshire. The second time, he was getting ready to win a whole bunch of primaries or had just won them, as recently as a couple weeks ago. Now, in many polls still, he’s the front-runner for the Democratic nomination with the most delegates, the most popular votes, and the likely Democratic nominee. It’s just absolutely breathtaking.

As I say, the notion that Condi Rice had no idea that this was going on either speaks volumes about her management of the department or makes you wonder who knew what, when?

OLBERMANN: You can expand it a little bit, which is, if something like this can happen to Senator Obama’s passport file, what about Howard Fineman’s? What about mine? What about anybody watching us tonight, where we wouldn’t get notified at all, and somebody just deciding to look these things up. I don’t know, it’s like counting blue cars, as the song went.

Let me give you that time frame again. I’m going to switch over the Andrea Mitchell for a second. January 9th and February 21st; those incidents resulted in the firing of these contract employees at State. March 14th, the individual was disciplined and the entire incident is pending. That person could yet be fired. One would assume that precedent would suggest that person is going to be.

Let me go back to Andrea Mitchell, joining us again by phone. Now we have some time line. Does this clarify, in your mind, what may have happened here and what’s going to happen next?

MITCHELL: I think it makes it even worse, frankly, because it doesn’t indicate that anybody took this seriously enough and that Secretary Rice or anyone else notified Senator Obama or his office in any kind of a timely way. They are saying this was not politically motivated. I’ll be on that conference call. I can assure you that. But how do you ascribe motivation until there’s an investigation and one that’s independent.

There’s no way that you can assure Senator Obama, certainly, or anyone involved in this that there was no political motivation without knowing more about the people involved. Certainly, no one is going to take the State Department’s word for that.

OLBERMANN: Yes, the idea of this being presented not to the Obama campaign, not the senator personally, but in a matter of fact—per Howard Fineman’s reporting on this, a matter of fact phone call from someone in State, not obviously a named individual there, or a name individual there, but just somebody at the office leaving a message almost, this afternoon.

It sounds like, once again, the origins of this may have been, as is surprisingly frequently true in events as galling as this—the origin of it may have been innocent and stupid and moronic and testifying to the idea people have such free access to this. But this time frame, we’re now dating it back to January 9th. That’s what’s going to be the story, of how in the world this could have been kept from Senator Obama or anybody of greater importance in the State Department for more than 48 hours, let alone a period of more than two months.

MITCHELL: Exactly. I have to tell you, you know, Keith, I have been around for a long time, but this is pretty shocking. This is a presidential campaign. This is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. You’re dealing with a Republican administration and you’re dealing with the most sensitive area’s, and as Howard Fineman was correctly pointing out, you’re talking about a nominee who’s rare, in that he lived part of his childhood over seas.

Questions have been raised accurately and inaccurately about his background. There has been a lot of erroneous information on the web about him. This really does rise to a very high level of incompetence, if not political skull-duggery.

OLBERMANN: All right, the next development we know about this—or we’re expecting—is a State Department conference call that should be taking place sometime after 9:00 Eastern. For now, we’ll let Andrea Mitchell go and prepare herself to hear what’s going on with that, with our great thanks. David Shuster has done, as expected, in the interim since we talked to him last, some digging on this, and is back in front of the camera in Washington.

I’ll read the quote to sort of set you up here; “a monitoring system was tripped,” according to our reporting out of State, “when an employee accessed the records of high profile individuals. When the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation of the records access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified.”

One has this mental picture of a bell going off somewhere? Is that anywhere near the truth?

SHUSTER: Yes. Keith, I was just speaking with the top investigator for this case when Bill Clinton’s passport was breached back in 1991, and this mechanism of triggering, an electronic triggering mechanism, was actually one of the things that came out of that Bill Clinton investigation, the investigation into George H.W. Bush’s administration, his State Department.

A couple things, Keith; first of all, I don’t have information as far as the reporting requirement. That is, this investigator is not sure if there was some sort of procedure that was set up, as far as when somebody is notified. However, the law is very clear, according to this investigator, that merely looking at this information is a violation of the Privacy Act, which is a misdemeanor. Merely disseminating information to somebody else turns it into a felony, with civil liability and possible criminal liability.

Now, the key questions that we’re going to be asking tonight, Keith, is that what’s supposed to happen is when there’s a breach, the inspector general is supposed to get involved and talk to these employees and find out, why were you doing this? Who asked you to do it, if anybody? What information did you provide to somebody that was essentially private?

The big question now at the State Department is what was the inspector general doing? Did they follow the proper procedures and ask the right questions of these people who were involved? Exactly what did these people tell the inspector general? As Andrea just pointed out, merely the State Department saying there was no political motivation—that may be fine for the State Department to say, but a lot of people tonight are going to want to know from the inspector general himself what did you do? What did you ask? How are you convinced that this was simply not a super-political breach?

The other, Keith, that is worth pointing out is that this inspector said that when it comes to the notification, when there are breaches of your passport information, the State Department has been notoriously slow, notoriously lax over the last 15 years, in terms of not only dealing with employees who are involved in this, but also in terms of notifying people who’s information has been breached and has been violated.

OLBERMANN: So, David, if these internal trigger systems, literally bells and whistles, perhaps, were the result of the special investigation into the 1991-92 investigations involving then candidate, then governor Bill Clinton, by the first Bush administration, those were the internal checks and balances. Was there anything external politically? Is there any kind of threshold for special prosecution or special investigation triggered by this,, anything external to the State?

SHUSTER: Keith, again, that’s where it now belongs to the inspector general. The inspector general at the State Department, like at every agency, is supposed to be essentially independent from the rest of the agency. It would be up to the inspector general, if he thought there was criminality, to refer that to the Justice Department and say, OK—

OLBERMANN: Let me interpret you, David. There it is right now. A senior law enforcement official telling NBC News tonight that he knows of no criminal investigation by the FBI into the unauthorized access by State Department contractors of the Obama passport records.

To continue what we’re reporting out of Washington—this is from Pete Williams, as a matter of fact. Two legal experts say the unauthorized access by itself would be, as David just pointed out, a violation of State Department administrative rules, and would constitute grounds for dismissal, but would not be a criminal violation.

It’s the Privacy Act that’s at issue, per Pete and per these experts that he’s quoting. An unauthorized access would not rise to potential criminal violation unless the information was disseminated, which could be as simple as passing it along to someone else who wasn’t authorized to see. One of Howard Fineman’s points that simply talking about this over cocktails might constitute a violation of the Privacy Act.

To continue Pete Williams’ off-air reporting from Washington, the normal course of events would be for the State Department to refer any potential criminal violation to the Justice Department, but officials say tonight they know of no such referral. And given the State Department’s explanation so far that this was mere nosiness, there would seem, at first glance, to be no grounds for criminal charges.

Again, David, that would be a kind of throw back in the face of Bill Burton, whose statement on this on behalf of the Obama campaign is the only thing we have on this officially. We demand to know who looked at Senator Obama’s passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal the security breach.

In terms of criminal prosecution, there doesn’t seem to be one from Pete’s point of view, Pete Williams at Justice, who knows this stuff backwards and forwards. I’m wondering, knowing the mechanics of Washington and politics, this is an electronic invasion of a presidential campaign. We have not seen the likes of this probably since that Clinton passport check of 1991-92.

For all we know, this could eventually blow up to the levels of parts of the Watergate investigation of ‘72, ‘73, ‘74. How quickly could something move politically on this? Is this likely to be brought up in the Congress, either in the House or the Senate at any point in the immediate future, in time to make a difference for this election?

SHUSTER: The person that everybody tonight in Washington is going to be perhaps asking questions of, or at least waiting to hear from, is going to this inspector general at the State Department, whose job it is to make the call about whether to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department, to the FBI, for an investigation.

What we’re learning, based on Pete’s note and based on how the State Department in these matters work, is that, for whatever reason, the inspector general at the State Department, whose name escapes me at the moment—but the inspector general decided that this was not worth a criminal referral. He was satisfied with the interviews he did with these contract employees, that it was either innocent or they were just fishing and that they did not disseminate the information.

How he made that judgment, how that inspector general decided, OK, they got the information but they didn’t give it to anybody, over cocktails or anywhere else, that’s now the responsibility of the inspector general to explain not just to Barack Obama, but to all the reporters who are going to be on this conference call in 15 minutes.

I mean, it’s the inspector general’s decision to make. Again, the question now belongs to him: what convinced you that this was simply just fishing around and this innocent? And what steps did you take to assure yourself and to assure the State Department that this wasn’t some sort of political dirty tricks, and that this information was not disseminated.

Again, once it is disseminated, once that information is shared, it does become a possible criminal violation worthy of a referral to the Justice Department for an investigation.

OLBERMANN: Never mind being worthy to the criminal investigation out of Justice; it wasn’t apparently worthy of a phone call to Senator Obama, even though this first incident was dated January 9th.

We’ve been quoting the off-air works Pete Williams, our chief Justice correspondent. Pete is now on the phone with us too. I’d love for you to flush this out. Do you have any indication—we’ve reported what you reported already, but do you have any indication what led them to believe so quickly that this was innocent curiosity, and did not merit not just referral to Justice, but merit notifying the person whose file was snooped into.

PETE WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: That part I can’t tell you, why they didn’t tell Senator Obama. I don’t know what the normal procedures are for doing that. Set Senator Obama aside, if your, Keith Olbermann’s, records are improperly accessed—I would be sort of surprised if the government had a procedure for telling every American when some snoop was poking into their records, because I think they would be fairly busy.

But what I’m told is that there is no criminal investigation here. One of the people I asked about the law here is Joe DiGenova, who was the independent council who investigated the Clinton passport case, and concluded that there was no criminal violations there. He and other criminal authorities agree that the test is—it’s the Privacy Act that’s implicated. The test is: was it mere snoopiness, which is not a criminal violation. It’s an administrative violation. It breaks the rules. You can be fired. You can be sanctioned.

If you pass it on to someone else, that’s where the potential criminal violation comes in. I guess everyone is satisfied, at the point we have to keep saying. We’re just getting into this tonight. At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that this was anything more than what one might call prurient interests, just their own nosiness, to look at his records.

We don’t know precisely how they reached that conclusion. Now to get around to finally answer your questions. We have to assume it’s based on their interviews with the people who did it. They seem to think that they were just nosey and just dying to know what famous people were doing. Apparently, one had the same birth date as Senator Obama. They thought that would be fascinating to know what someone with the same birth date, his travel records were. It’s all the wrong thing to do, but at this point, there is no indication it was passed on to anyone else, so far.

OLBERMANN: One note to David Shuster’s reporting when he was talking about not being able to pull off the top of his head the name of the inspector general at the Department of State. There’s a reason for that. This testifies to David Shuster’s various expertise. The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of State is currently vacant. There is a deputy inspector general, Mr. Todd, but there is no inspector general in office at the moment.

WILLIAMS: There’s still somebody—

OLBERMANN: There’s somebody to do it. But that’s why David couldn’t come up with the name. Let me ask you, Pete Williams, this one question that occurred to me in your explanation as to what they probably found, at least what sort of structure would have led the people in the State Department to suggest that was not worthy of a criminal referral to the Justice Department. Are there additional rules about reporting this upwards through the chain of command in State? Is there a possibility of something along that lines being a violation?

WILLIAMS: I think the way it works is—I don’t know if these systems—my guess, quite frankly, would be that these systems were put in place after the embarrassment of the Clinton unauthorized passport disclosure stuff when he was running for president the first time.

The way it’s supposed to work is it’s a computer system. There are certain people it’s looking out for, I guess, a list of famous, high profile people, and if someone improperly accesses those, a computer record is made of that. Then the supervisor of the contract employees is notified. The supervisor then says why were you doing that. If the supervisor is not satisfied—maybe I should put it this way, if the supervisor is satisfied that the reason is not a good one, not a legitimate government reason, then they begin to take steps to sanction the employee.

How high up it gets reported, I don’t know. With a candidate that’s running for president, you would assume that senior State Department people would know about this.

OLBERMANN: Especially given the time line that we now know of. The Associate Press is now quoting spokesman Sean McCormack, who will be on this State Department conference call a little after 9:00 Eastern, quoting him as saying that this was the result of imprudent curiosity by State Department employees, but he’s confirming these dates, January 9th, February 21st, and again last Friday, March 14th.

Certainly, you would think that after that second separate incident on February 21, where somebody else just happened to look in Obama’s passport file, that somebody in the State Department, even somebody at the low level of the consular agency, would have said, there’s something wrong here. We need to get at least our people at the higher levels, at the political levels of the State Department informed on this. It must have been knowledge within state within the last month. Must if have not?

WILLIAMS: You would sure assume so, but government seldom works the way it should.

OLBERMANN: Pete Williams doing some yeoman work after hours for us in Washington. We thank you greatly, Pete.

WILLIAMS: My pleasure.

OLBERMANN: Let’s recap what we have so far. The confirmation is in and there’s a conference call scheduled for sometime after 9:00 Eastern by the U.S. Department of State. Two contract employees have been fired, a third was disciplined and the case is still open. There may yet be further discipline against that individual for inappropriately looking at the passport file of Senator Barack Obama.

The spokesman for the State Department, Sean McCormack, has confirmed that there was imprudent curiosity by State Department employees and has confirmed our earlier reporting, that these were three separate incidents, on January 9th, the first one, February 22st, and March 14th.

The Obama family, the Obama Senate office and the Obama presidential campaign found out about all this today, that according to Howard Fineman’s writing and reporting. This was referred to Obama’s Senate office today by some functionary within the State Department. This was not Secretary of State Rice calling Obama or even one of the undersecretaries calling Senator Obama, and saying, yes, by the way, somebody has been looking. We think it’s pretty innocent, but it’s happened three times. We thought we had better had let you know.

Nobody said a word to him until this day. We’re reporting out of Washington that these were two contract employees. In other words, as a spokesman said, people who were hired, who had access to the passport records of Senator Obama, were contract employees of the Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs. They were caught when a monitoring system was tripped when an employee accessed the records of a high profile individual, in this case Senator Obama.

The monitoring system is tripped, and therefore, at that point, State immediately seeks an explanation for the records accessed. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified. You may have heard David Shuster reporting before that this entire sounding like a Rube Goldbergian kind of methodology for alerting when the computer records have been viewed by people who shouldn’t have viewed them, was put into place after the incident in ‘91 and ‘92 when the Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas, had his passport records examined improperly within the State Department.

Again, the complaint from the Obama campaign became public a little bit before 8:00 p.m. Eastern this evening and became official in a statement from Bill Burton, the press secretary, that “this is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that’s showed little regard for either over the last eight years. Our government’s duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes. This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation. We demand to know who looked at Senator Obama’s passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach.”

That again Bill Burton, the press secretary to Senator Obama.

We are joined on the phone by the co-chair of the Obama campaign, Eric Holder. Mr. Holder, thanks for your time tonight.

ERIC HOLDER, OBAMA CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIR: Thanks, good to speak to you.

OLBERMANN: What can you add to this? Is this in fact true, that your candidate, the senator, did not hear anything about this until earlier this evening, late this afternoon?

HOLDER: Yes. We only heard about it today. I have to tell you, Keith, this is very disturbing. When you have—if you had one incident of somebody looking into the files, you could say, perhaps it’s just somebody snooping around inappropriately. But when you have three separate incidents, one as recently, I guess, as last week some time, I begin to wonder, as a former prosecutor, whether or not we have a pattern here.

I want to know exactly who knew about this in the State Department, who made the determination that this should not be referred to the Justice Department? I think there’s a lot of questions that need to be answered here. I’m very disturbed by this.

OLBERMANN: As we suggested, this runs the whole—the potentialities here run the whole gamut. This could be literally what it’s being described as by the State Department, which a couple of guys who have access to computer records and one of them, supposedly, had the same birth date as the senator and wanted to go look and see where he had been. It could be something as innocent as that, or it could be the wildest conspiracy that either one of us could put together.

But the real point seems to be that if the State Department is tonight confirming that the first incident occurred on January 9th, and they didn’t tell you until today, March 20, there seems to have been a long period of time. There’s a gap in there of more than 70 days. Is that what has alarmed you, as much as the fact of the stealing of the information, the looking into this private record?

HOLDER: There’s a whole host of things that I think are disturbing here. The fact that it is three separate incidents, one per month, over the course of three months, and the fact that one happened I guess over two months ago and this is the first time that somebody whose privacy has been violated, perhaps in a criminal way, is being notified about it. There’s at least, it seems to me, some administrative bungling here and perhaps, at worst, something that needs to be looked at by the Justice Department.

There’s a whole bunch of questions here that I have, as I said before, that are extremely disturbing to me.

OLBERMANN: Have you been in touch with the senator, Mr. Holder? Does he have a specific reaction to this?

HOLDER: No, I have not spoken to Senator Obama about this.

OLBERMANN: The idea, again, that this went on as long as it did and then it was—your campaign, again, let me backtrack here. Give me some sort of confirmation; how did the campaign, how did the senator and how did his office find out about this? What was—the story that we are hearing is it went State Department to—not even a major figure in the State Department, but somebody from the department to the senators Senate office in Washington. Is that correct?

HOLDER: I cannot confirm that. I have only spoken to people here very generally and that is my understanding about how the information was passed to us. I don’t know for sure though how the information was conveyed to Senator Obama or the people around Senator Obama.

OLBERMANN: What, Mr. Holder, is the next step, from your point of view?

HOLDER: I think the question—I would like to see what the State Department will say about what they have done, in terms of investigating this. I would like to hear from the person who I guess is the acting inspector general, how they made the determination that this was not something to be referred to the Justice Department, especially given the fact that when something similar happened in the early ‘90s, an independent council was actually appointed, Joe DiGenova, a very accomplished lawyer in Washington, DC, was appointed to look into that.

Given that background, and, again, this pattern that I see here, this determination relatively quickly, it seems to me, to make the decision not to refer this to the Justice Department. I’d like to have a very good explanation of why that determination was made.

OLBERMANN: I think many in the news organizations of this country would probably ask the same question and share your opinion. I’m sure you’ll be interested by a statement from Howard Wolfson from the Clinton campaign to Howard Fineman, reporting for us and obviously “Newsweek;” “if it’s true, it’s outrageous.” I think that pretty much sums it up. Does it not?

HOLDER: On this one, I can finally agree with Howard Wolfson.

OLBERMANN: Eric Holder, co-chair of the Obama campaign, giving us what he knows of this breaking situation that’s taken over the air waves for the last hour. Mr. Holder, great thanks to you.

HOLDER: Thank you.

OLBERMANN: As we approach 9:00, let me wrap up everything that we have in front of us right now. It’s a considerable amount of information. The State Department is confirming tonight that on three occasions since January, January 9th, February 21st, March 14th, last Friday, apparently non-staff employees of the State Department, contracted employees, people perhaps down as low as the level of having been hired to enter data, accessed improperly the personal passport file of Senator Barack Obama, who has had a passport since he was a child in the 1960s and 1970s, having done a considerable amount of travel at that time, as a kid, living for a while in Indonesia.

State Department confirm that two of these employees, in the incidents on January 9th and February 21st, had already been dismissed, that the third incident, which occurred only last Friday, is still under investigation. That individual has been reprimanded at this point.

All this came to light when these three people who had access to passport records of Senator Obama—were contract employees who had this access. A monitoring system was tripped when an employee accessed the records of a high-profile individual, in this case Senator Obama. The monitoring system is tripped, a monitoring system that we have again reported to you tonight was installed in 1992 after a similar incident with then Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Clinton.

The system was tripped and the State Department immediately seeks an explanation for the records access. And if the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified. Just how immediately seems to be the number one issue right now. The first instance of this occurred about 70 days ago, on January 9th. Then somebody else accessed Senator Obama’s record on February 21st. Then it happened again on March 14th.

Late this afternoon, per the reporting of Howard Fineman, and per Eric Holder, co-chair of the Obama campaign committee, this afternoon, Senator Obama’s office—was of his offices was informed by somebody at some lower level of the State Department. Pete Williams reporting out of Washington that State has determined that there’s no need for criminal investigation. I suspect that the Justice Department will be the only one thing in the United States that could possibly investigating this extraordinary story, that will not be investigating in the next few days.

That is a special edition of COUNTDOWN. We thank you for being with us. Good night and good luck.

During Rally, Al Sharpton Says He's Keeping Support For Obama Quiet

In the New York Daily News:

The Rev. Al Sharpton is backing Barack Obama, but he's made the strategic decision to keep his support quiet.

That's the message Sharpton delivered to his flock last Saturday as he boasted of talking to Obama "two or three times a week" - and insisted the Democratic front-runner knows the rev is in his camp.

"I said, 'I'm gonna do whatever I gotta do to help you. Hillary Clinton has never done nothing for us,'" said Sharpton, recounting a conversation with Obama for his followers at his group's weekly rally.

"'I won't either endorse you or not endorse you,'" Sharpton said he told the Illinois senator as the two made their way to a Nov. 29 dinner at Sylvia's Restaurant in Harlem. "'But I will tell you I can be freer not endorsing you to help you and everybody else.'"

According to Sharpton, Obama protested and asked for his public support. "'No, no, no. I want you to endorse,'" Sharpton recalled Obama saying.

Sharpton told Obama that it would be better strategically for him to remain publicly neutral.

"If I endorse you, and they jump on somebody in Jena, you're going to want me not to go because the press is going to ask you what about your supporter," Sharpton said.

"Negroes just [ask], 'What, what's Sharpton gonna do,'" he explained. "If you understand strategy, you get somewhere."

An endorsement from the controversial Sharpton is a double-edged sword, impressing some voters and driving others away.

Sharpton told the Daily News yesterday he has no plans to officially endorse Obama, but admitted he's "absolutely supportive" of his White House bid.

"If people got that impression on Saturday, that is the right impression," he crowed.

Sharpton said one of the reasons he has "started discussing my private feelings is because of the disappointment I've had in the public conduct of the Clinton campaign."

He specifically cited racially tinged statements from former President Bill Clinton, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro as troubling.

Asked to explain his comment that Clinton had "done nothing for us," Sharpton said he was referring to his organization, the National Action Network, not the black community.

A spokesman for Clinton declined to comment, while an Obama spokesman refused to comment on private conversations with Sharpton.

The Democrats Are Waging a War of E-Mails

In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,, Daniel Malloy reports:

At 1:46 p.m. yesterday the e-mail arrived in reporters' inboxes from Sen. Barack Obama's campaign: "Obama Receives Endorsement of Flag Officers from Army, Navy and Air Force."

It touted a news conference earlier in the day at which 10 high-ranking former military officers had announced their support of Mr. Obama, an attempt to show the senator's strength on national security issues.

Exactly 24 minutes later, Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign returned the salvo with a missive of its own -- a list of 31 high-ranking former military officers who have pledged their support for Mrs. Clinton in the past. Two minutes after that, the campaign issued a memo with pointed questions for Mr. Obama on national security, including:

"As voters evaluate you as a potential Commander-in-Chief, do you think it's legitimate for people to be concerned that you have traveled to only one NATO country, on a brief stopover trip in 2005, and have never traveled to Latin America?"

Just another day in the e-mail crossfire.

As the Democratic primary campaign continues -- next stop, Pennsylvania -- the frequency and intensity of attacks from the campaigns has risen, with rapid-fire e-mail exchanges sent to thousands in the news media being a primary conduit of bickering.

In the earlier stages of primary season, media e-mails were used mostly to give candidate event schedules and distribute prepared remarks. But as attacks between the two candidates -- both from the candidates themselves and from surrogates -- increased leading up to the March 4 contests, e-mail became a quick way to issue those attacks and arrange conference calls to talk about them.

It has made pseudo-stars out of top-level strategists like Howard Wolfson, for Mrs. Clinton, and David Axelrod, for Mr. Obama, who duel for press attention every day by sniping at each other.

"There's been a lot more back-and-forth," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

"Both campaigns were hesitant to go for the jugular during the first couple of months. There were a few little tit-for-tats but not that many. But now the holds have been taken off. It's no holds-barred."

Initially loath to react to the Clinton campaign's attacks -- perhaps because he has preached a different style of politics -- Mr. Obama's responses have become more forceful following Mrs. Clinton's successes in the March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio.

After former vice presidential nominee and Clinton fund-raiser Geraldine Ferraro told a California newspaper that being a black man has been a big advantage for Mr. Obama, the campaign quickly arranged a conference call to call attention to the remarks and express its outrage.

"This is a lesson that is now considered to be gospel: If you're attacked, you have to attack back, and you have to do it quickly," said Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

"I think that John Kerry didn't do that to his ultimate chagrin [in his failed presidential bid in 2004], and I don't think Obama is going to be willing to turn the other cheek. I think he's going to strike back. This thing with Ferraro is an example."

Sometimes the Obama campaign hasn't even waited to issue its own e-mail or conference call to strike.

The Washington Post reported that when the Clinton campaign scheduled an "emergency" conference call with reporters March 4 to air accusations of voter intimidation in Texas, Mr. Obama's general counsel, Bob Bauer, hopped on the call and asked:

"I'm curious to know how is this any different than the series of complaints you've registered against every caucus that you lose?"

Considering the stakes for Pennsylvania's 158 pledged delegates, that kind of snippiness shows no signs of slowing with nearly six weeks to go until the April 22 primary.

"The one thing we know from a political science standpoint about negative campaigning is that everyone says they hate it ... but it works," said Jennifer Victor, a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh. "By all means, I suspect we'll see a lot more of it."

And it's coming to an inbox near you.

Tensions Rise in South America

Colombia will ask the International Criminal Court to try the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of supporting genocide. (Reuters: Jorge Silva)

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports:

Venezuela has moved 10 army battalions to the border with Colombia, as diplomats struggle to defuse the regional crisis triggered by Colombia's cross-border attack in Ecuador last weekend.

The Organisation of American States says Colombia violated Ecuador's sovereignty in the raid and Colombia has said it will ask the International Criminal Court to try the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for genocide, claiming he is financing the rebels.

Ecuador has accused Colombia of violating its sovereignty when it raided the FARC's jungle camp - killing the rebel group's second-in-command, Raul Reyes.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe says the leftist governments of Venezuela and Ecuador provide support to the rebels and has now signalled he will seek to bring charges of supporting genocide against the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

"We are proposing to the International Criminal Court that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela be denounced for the presumed crime of financing genocide.

"We have suffered 40 years of terrorism, and we can't accept that a country should be in solidarity and in complicity with terrorists."

But Ecuador's President Rafael Correa sees it differently.

"Here is a naked, irrefutable fact" he said.

"International law has been trampled upon; the letter to the Organisation of American States has been trampled upon; the fundamental respect that needs to exist for a sovereign country, a friend and a dear brother, has also been trampled upon"

Organisation of American States secretary Reinaldo Rodriguez Gallad says Correa is now being backed by the organisation, after an emergency meeting in Washington.

"We reaffirm the principle that a state's territory can't be violated and can't be the subject of military occupation, nor any other forceful measure taken by any other state, whatever the motive may be, even temporarily."

The United States was the only nation in the OAS to offer Colombia unqualified support.

Ecuador has since rejected a Colombian apology as insufficient and President Correa has mobilised thousands of Ecuadorian troops towards the border.

And the Colombian raid has also infuriated President Chavez, who has ordered his own tanks and troops to the border area.

President Chavez says he believes conflict with Colombia and its ally, the United States, is inevitable, but his country wants peace.

"Nothing and nobody will take us off the road to true peace," he said.

Dr Yvonne Corcoran-Nantes is a senior lecturer with the School of Political and International Studies at Flinders University and says Colombia has broken all the existing protocol.

"The co-existence and the solidarity that been developed over the last decade within South America has been really, really important and this has really broken all the protocols or many of them that have been sustained and supported over the last decade," she said.

Dr Corcoran-Nantes says there is little basis to Colombia's claims that Chavez is supporting the FARC rebels.

"International political positions, particularly those that support the United States will consistently blame Hugo Chavez for almost everything that goes on in Latin America that it doesn't like," she said.

"I don't think for one minute that Chavez is supporting in any substantive financial or materialistic way, FARC for example.

Dr Corcoran-Nantes says that the crisis will eventually pan out.

"I think that Columbia will come to a point when it will make some grudging apology," she said.

"But at the same time it will justify what it has done and whether that is acceptable or not remains to be seen.

"I don't believe, we are going to break out in all out war, unless pushed.

"The United States wouldn't want that, but I think it will make the relationship between Columbia and Ecuador and Columbia and Venezuela extremely fraught."

Meanwhile, border commerce between Venezuela and Colombia has already been disrupted as the tensions worsen.

What one Venezuelan citizen says perhaps best sums up the mood of the people there.

"Everybody is afraid of what could happen," he said.

"The truth is, as far as I'm concerned, this shouldn't be happening, how can we fight if we are brothers?"